


Ghosts

by Saucery, switchknife (Saucery)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aging, Angst, Backstory, Character Death, Creepy, Dementia, Depressing, Drama, Dreams vs. Reality, Ficlet, Flashbacks, Ghosts, Haunting, Illnesses, Implied Slash, Lucius Dies, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mindfuck, Old Age, Or Maybe He Doesn't?, Post-Canon, Psychology, Reality Bending, Snape Lives, Time Skips, Timeline What Timeline, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-14
Updated: 2004-12-14
Packaged: 2018-02-18 15:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2352599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/switchknife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape’s often visited by ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheMostePotente](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMostePotente/gifts), [ignorethesmoke_](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ignorethesmoke_).



> Written for **ignorethesmoke_** and **themostepotente** , both of whom asked me for Snape/Lucius so long ago that they probably don't even remember asking for it.

* * *

 

Snape’s often visited by ghosts. Yes, even here, with the bright-lit curtains swaying around his bed, and hot tea with cinnamon or mint depending on Pomfrey’s whim, except that Pomfrey isn’t here anymore. Longbottom is. Snape watches him, crow-wary, as Longbottom makes his rounds with a tired face; sometimes Snape talks to him, but Longbottom never stays long enough to hear. Shadow of the door dark as a belladonna’s leaf: opening, closing, as Longbottom leaves the ward.

 

* * *

 

Lucius is sitting by the window again. His hair is a blinding gilt from here, from the warm, heavy silence of Snape’s sleep-tangled sheets. Snape raises himself on unsteady arms, blinking at the light.

“Father wants me engaged to Narcissa,” Lucius says, still looking out the window. “Narcissa Black, would you believe it—pretty enough, but their family’s a disgrace thanks to that sister of hers. Andromeda. Married a damn _Mudblood_ , Severus.”

And no Malfoy would stand to be compared to a Mudblood. Of course.

Lucius stays and talks a while, strangely generous now; he seems much fonder of the sunlight here, perhaps because it favours his features, the rich velvet of his cloak. But when Snape asks him, Lucius only curls one of his cold, oddly affectionate sneers.

“It was too dark in there,” Lucius answers. “Too dark for far too long.”

And Snape means to ask him _where_ , but then he notices that, despite the finery, Lucius’ fingernails are caked with dirt.

 

* * *

 

Potter, too. Timed as deviously as the brat can manage—whenever Snape’s too befuddled to snap at him, to snarl at him, to order him out of the room. The potion Longbottom gave Snape—an ironic mixture of wolfsbane and sleepwort—makes him shaky and heavy-tongued, unable to slur out even the most basic of insults. Potter, the self-possessed bastard, takes obvious pleasure in this. He pulls Lucius’ chair over and sits down, watching Snape with oddly intent, careful eyes.

“Stop mocking me,” Snape rasps as soon as he can; Potter raises his eyebrows, as if in surprise, but his mouth is crooked in a smile.

“Why? You never stopped mocking _me_.”

Good answer. Good... answer. Snape stares at Potter, knowing that he should say something, but finding the pouch of his mind strangely empty. He’s been robbed. He knows he has.

“Who do you talk to?” Potter asks, gesturing around the room.

An idiotic question. “You, apparently.”

Potter barks out a laugh—sudden, surprised—and that’s when Snape realises how old Potter looks. Lines crinkle about his eyes, and his face is weathered and lined; Potter looks older than he should, but he’s as young as Lucius is.

No. Wait.

That can’t be right.

If Lucius visited him yesterday and looked the same age, one of them must be...

“What’re you thinking?” Potter’s sobered up, now. His eyes are sharp again, unnaturally sharp, as they fix on Snape.

“You... you aren’t real.”

“Aren’t I?” Potter watches him a moment, face pensive—but then he leans forward and places both hands on Snape’s chest, calloused and warm. Heavy on Snape’s beating heart.

“Pot—”

“Quiet.” Potter’s concentrating now, although on what, exactly, isn’t clear. He’s only watching Snape, eyes growing greener by the second, sharpened like winter grass, and he moves his hands along Snape’s chest, and then down Snape’s arms, in ways that only Lucius used to know.

“How,” Snape starts to ask, even as his breath grows heavy and his skin grows flushed, but then he remembers that Potter’s a Legilimens, and has been for many years.

“I should’ve known,” Potter says quietly, although now his smile appears falsely fixed, brittle. “I bet you’re sorry we won, aren’t you?”

“No,” Snape responds, searching frantically in his mind and finding nothing— _nothing_ —to fight Potter off with—but as it turns out, that doesn’t matter.

“You’re a stupid old man, Snape,” Potter leans over to hiss in his ear, hot and serpentine. “Stupid. Old. And lonely.”

And Snape closes his eyes, because the words mean almost nothing—but when he opens them, Potter’s gone, sudden as a breeze, and the bright-lit curtains of his bed are swaying again, gently.

 

* * *

 

Pomfrey brings him his tea this morning. He asks her about Longbottom, because he’s sure that it’s Longbottom who’s supposed to attend to him—to bring him his tea and his potion, forgetfulness for another day.

But Pomfrey looks surprised. “Your fever must’ve been worse than I thought,” she says. “Longbottom’s in class, of course.”

“Class...?”

“Class.” She smiles, somehow stern and gentle at once.

“And Potter?”

“In the Headmaster’s office, with Black. Lupin’s too ill to attend, poor boy...”

Lupin. Black. What on _earth_ —

Snape tries to sit up, to shove the curtains aside with his trembling hands, but the bandages across his ribs stop him, as do the spells that bind him to his bed.

Pomfrey tuts distractedly, reaching to straighten the bandages. “Now, now. Be still. You’re safe.”

Snape looks past her shoulder, and sees Lupin in the bed across the ward, also bandaged from the waist up, looking young and exhausted and very deeply asleep.

 

* * *

 

“Too dark,” Lucius murmurs by his side. “Too dark...”

 

* * *

 

Snape’s often visited by ghosts. Perhaps it’s time he joined them.

 

* * *

 

**fin.**

 


End file.
